With his popularity at an all time low and the disastrous war in Iraq devouring his presidency, I am sure that George Bush has not given a second thought to the thirtieth anniversary of the military coup in Argentina. True, Bush's brain does not seem to exert itself with many thoughts of any kind, first, second or third, and yet, there is much he could learn from the terror unleashed in Argentina, an onslaught by its Armed Forces which would lead to the "disappearance" of thirty-thousand men and women.

For starters, given that Bush obdurately claims that the United States has been called upon by God to spread "democracy" around the globe, he could use a good history lesson and examine how his country propped up the terrorist regime in Argentina. Bush's father, who was the director of the CIA at the time of the coup in 1976, could tell his son a thing or two about the American role in supporting that dictatorship and some other tyrannies all through the twentieth century. More crucial to Bush Junior, however, and more urgent, would be to examine how the Argentine military, in the years since their country returned to democracy, have slowly and painfully dealt with their massive human rights violations.

That torture and exile, those executions and vast maltreatment, has been recognized, first by the army of Argentina in 1995, then by its navy in 2004 and a few days ago by its air force, as horrors for which the institutions themselves need to be held responsible. Not a few "bad apples". Not "excesses". Not a solitary dog trainer who happened to wake up one morning and decide to unleash his pets on cowering prisoners. Not a sergeant who decided one day to hood his wards and waterboard them, apply electricity to their genitals, make an inmate drink his own urine.

The armed forces in Argentina have proclaimed that everything that was done as part of their own "war on terror" was systemic. Systemic.. The decision to torture came from the top. Systemic. The decision to "take the gloves off" (no more Mr Nice Guy, right?) was created and encouraged by the highest authorities, was deemed inevitable by those who wanted to pacify a recalcitrant population, scare them into submission, demand that the soldiers on the ground extract more information, more "intelligence", stop the next "terrorist" attack.

Systemic. A word George Bush probably does not even know how to pronounce. An adjective. Of or relating to a system, as opposed to a particular part: the disease is not localized but systemic.

A system, George. Torture is a system: a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole.

The dirty war - la Guerra sucia - in Argentina, George, that was born in a military coup thirty years ago on March 24th 1976.